Biden holds narrow lead over Trump among Latino voters in FL, but Cuban-American voters favor the president

As the general election draws near, Latino voters in Florida slightly favor former vice president Joe Biden over President Donald Trump, according to a state poll released Thursday.

Biden holds only a slight lead among Hispanic voters in the battleground state, with 48 percent saying they’d vote for Biden compared to 43 percent voting for Trump, the Telemundo poll shows.

However, Biden didn’t fare well with all Hispanic groups, as the majority of Cuban-American voters support Trump.

According to the poll, Trump holds a 71- 23 percent lead over Biden among Cuban-American voters in Florida.

A total of 500 registered Latino voters across the state were surveyed by phone from Oct. 23 through Oct. 26, according to a press release. And all the respondents stated that they were likely to vote in the upcoming general election.

With the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare,  at the forefront of the 2020 elections, most Latino voters in the survey were not concerned that they’d lose their health insurance if Obamacare is struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In all, 78 percent said they don’t believe they’d lose health coverage and only 14 percent believe they would lose it.

In unprecedented 2020 presidential debates due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Biden and Trump were only able to meet twice on stage to spar over several issues from race and police reform, to the pandemic and health care.

According to the poll results, 41 percent of the respondents said they’d “already decided to vote for Biden” and the presidential debate didn’t change their mind. In contrast, 36 percent already favored Trump and the debate didn’t sway them.

Another poll question included whether Latino voters are “seriously concerned about violence breaking out after the election,” because of a contentious election year. Overall, 49 percent said they were not concerned, compared to 45 percent who said they were.

And notably, most of the respondents from the Latino community weren’t moved by Trump’s promise to unveil a coronavirus vaccine. In all, 52 percent of Latino voters said they will not “immediately get vaccinated” if an approved vaccination became available, compared to 37 percent who said they will.

According to the poll of Latino voters, 41 percent of the respondents were registered Democrats; 33 percent were Republicans and 26 percent were registered as Independent or other.

The polls were conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy in Arizona, Nevada, Texas and Florida. They have a margin of error of +/- 4.5 percentage points.

According to a press release, “The polls were conducted as part of Telemundo’s ‘Decision 2020’ initiative, a non-partisan multiplatform news and civic engagement effort to provide Latinos with comprehensive information and resources on this year’s election. The polls are the latest in a yearlong series of Telemundo local and national surveys focused on the Latino electorate.”